Wheel Love

Audrey Bednarz was tired of sitting on the bench while her 15-year-old son Barrett careened around the roller hockey rink.

“I was bored watching,” Bednarz recalled. “I wanted to get involved.”

So the 40-year-old West Hills resident recruited a few other roller hockey moms to play on a women’s team. Bednarz later joined the Spiders, a team of 44 men and women ages 17 and older who regularly play at the West Valley Family YMCA in Reseda.

“At first I played defense,” said Bednarz, a personnel manager for an entertainment company. “But then I put on goalie gear. I realized I wasn’t afraid to fall or have pucks hit me in the face.”

Every Friday, Bednarz suits up and takes her position in the net. Among the defensemen protecting her is her son Barrett, whose exceptional skills earned him a spot on the adult team, she said.

“I enjoy the sport even more because I am doing it with my son,” she said. “It has brought [us] closer together.”

Since joining her son on the rink, Bednarz said the pair go to professional hockey games, play pick-up games with neighborhood kids and fashion goals and pucks out of straw wrappers while waiting for meals at restaurants.

“Usually you lose kids when they are 12 and 13 because you have nothing in common,” she said. “My son has taught me more about what it’s like to be a kid than I knew when I was a kid.”

Bednarz encourages other parents to get in the game.

“It’s OK to go out there and do it,” she said. “You and your children will have something to talk about and you will respect them and their effort.”